Celebrating the great Canadian game. Tracking the NHL, the Canadian teams and a lot more!

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Gretzky King of all Media: Out of sight, but not out of mind!

He may not have a job behind the bench at the moment and has been keeping a low profile of late, but as fall moves towards winter we're suddenly learning a lot more about Wayne Gretzky.

While the iconic statesman of the modern game ponders his next move against his former team and the NHL over unresolved salary issues, his persona is being revealed in ways never seen before and in a variety of fashions.

Stephen Brunt recently released his latest work of the hockey genre, Gretzky's Tears, a far reaching account of the Trade of NHL century which saw Canada's beloved scoring sensation moved out of the cold Edmonton winters to the sunny climes of California, a fair bit of treason that to this day probably has Peter Pocklington donning disguises.

Both will no doubt be found under a few Christmas trees this holiday season, though Edmontonians probably won't be feeling very cheery after their first read through.

And now as though a companion piece for all this literature, comes a documentary film from Southern California film maker Peter Berg, the director who brought us Hancock, Friday Night Lights and The Kingdom to name a few, turns his attention to the Gretzky story with King's Ransom.

Berg is a long time hockey fan, originally from New York, with a passion for the game. In King's Ransom he has chronicled the Gretzky arrival with a dedication to detail and perhaps providing the most revealing portrait yet of the raw emotions and cold calculations that changed the nature of the game in Canada forever. Highlighting the realization that in the end, it would be money that forever dictated the future of the game from that day on.